Page 107 of Meet Me in the Garden

“It’s me. Marty now.” He smiles broadly. “This is my wife, Rose.”

It’s so much to take in. I’m full of questions; I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to ask them. And now Jeremy’s arriving with a woman in a pink sweater. “We brought wine and Tarot cards,” he says, taking off his jacket. “Does anyone know how to read them?”

“I could fake it,” Marty says.

“Tarot makes me think of that French film,” Ginny says. “We saw it together, remember? The last time you visited. The opening credits…”

“Cléo from 5 to 7!” Elise says. “Odette and I saw it at the Los Feliz Theater.”

“We saw it there, too,” Rose says. “Could have run into you.”

“Thanks a lot for the invitation, you all,” Jeremy says.

“I covet Cléo’s polka-dot dress,” Elise says.

“And what about that black hat?” Rose asks.

Ginny says, “We’re all here. Let’s toast.”

We clink glasses.

A waft of scent comes from the kitchen—savory and warm—and everyone groans and professes their hunger, and Ginny heads to check the oven.

“Ginny needs help in there, I think,” Elise tells me. “In fact, I’m sure.” She gives me a little push.

Ginny’s tying an apron around her waist as I come in. She lets me take down plates, dress the green salad she’s prepared in a giant yellow bowl.

“This is all so beautiful. I want to cook for you, too,” I say. “Will you let me?”

She opens the oven, pulls out a glass baking dish. Cheese, perfectly browned on top, studded with basil. “What will you make?” she asks.

“Gumbo,” I say. It’s the most special thing I could serve her, the one that means the most. Jeremy steps in before she can answer. He’s in search of a corkscrew. “I got us a Chianti,” he says, and we’re carrying plates and food to the small dining table, covering its surface, leavingonly enough room for serving. We all dish food for ourselves, take heaping plates to the living room. For a few minutes, all anyone can do is eat and talk about the food. The tenderness of the eggplant, the brightness of the dressing.

“Is it hard sometimes,” Rose asks, “to cook your family’s recipes when you don’t get to have a relationship with them?”

“A little.”

Rose says, “The way you cook. It’s so loving.”

I watch as Ginny takes her time chewing, swallowing, sipping red wine from her glass. She says, “Sometimes it’s a way to stay close. And sometimes it’s taking what was good, turning it into my own. Not needing them for anything.”

I shift my weight on the carpet, something gnawing under my ribs. My sisters. My family. Whether we’ll ever be whole again. Everyone’s waiting to see if Ginny will say more, but then she notices our empty glasses.

“I’ll open another bottle. Odette, help me choose.” Ginny opens a cabinet near the table and we peer in. She turns a few labels for us to see. “Maybe one of these?” I decide on a Barolo with a pleasing gold type, and before she reaches to take it, she says, “I keep thinking about that part inCléo from 5 to 7, that long moment on the bus when you see their faces in the frame—Cléo’s and the soldier’s—and they’re so close to each other, and all you can do is wonder if that’s it for them, that one afternoon, or if it’s only the beginning.”

Our faces are close together, exactly that same way. “I remember.”

“That’s how my whole life feels, with you,” she says. And then she’s taking the wine and stepping away and my heart pounds.

When I turn she’s filling glasses and Marty’s asking, “How many years has it been since we moved out of our old place?”

I take my spot next to Elise again. “Fifteen,” I say. They all turn to me. “My son, Clément, was about to turn three. He’ll turn eighteen in the fall.”

Jeremy’s date’s eyes open wide. “You have a teenager?”

“Two of them, actually.”

“Her daughter’s name is Nathalie,” Elise says. “Has a face like a kitten. Prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.”